Reviewed by: Keith Nixon
Genre: Psychological Thriller / Short
Story
Approximate word count: 5-10,000 words
Availability
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Author:
Randy
Charles is a mental health professional who decided to write her own
psychological fiction novels. She also likes DIY, music and cupcakes.
Description:
Emma Burns
seems to be your average housewife, quietly married with a computer geek
husband and two children. However Emma keeps forgetting things, to collect her
kids from school, for example. Then people she meets know her, but under
different names. Then when Emma wakes up in a bath, full of lukewarm, blood
tinged water, she knows she needs to find out what’s going on.
Appraisal:
The author
says in her bio she has a debut novel coming soon. Presumably this novella is a
taster for what’s on the way. But whether it’s an entirely different story, or
a continuation of this one, I don’t know. And, although Three Times A Lady, is reasonably well written it suffers two
issues – insufficient length to develop the theme which means there are more
questions than answers.
Emma seems
to be this boring, stay at home mom, but she starts receiving calls from Ricky,
who refers to her as Carly. Apparently they’re in a relationship. Emma is
confused. Then she’s out shopping with her kids and meets a woman who calls her
Jessa. It seems they met at a bar, which Emma believes she’s never been inside.
Once Emma
wakes up in the bath she decides enough is enough and goes to see Ricky. It
transpires they’ve been in a relationship for six months. Then Emma goes to the
bar, where apparently she’s a rabble rouser and is dating an ex-con. Only now
does Emma’s husband start to get shirty.
And this is
my problem. There’s a serious suspension of belief needed here. Could someone
really not know what’s going on for six months? Husband and wife? How come Emma
only now bumps into someone who knows her in another life? Why has Ricky only
now just called her up?
Perhaps
it’s feasible, I’m no expert. However I wasn’t presented with any evidence to
answer these questions. Nice premise, but unfortunately in my mind it all
seemed too unlikely, too unrealistic.
The
ending was also a bit of an issue, it also leaves an unanswered question.
Clearly this is what the author intended, but on top of the others it’s just a
step too far. The writing is decent enough and I’d be interested to see how the
novel turns out, but this little slice of narrative just isn’t sufficiently
developed.
FYI:
None.
Format/Typo Issues:
Nothing
worth a mention.
Rating: *** Three Stars
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